Analysis of I Held The Sun in my Right Hand
The land where I grew up
was a wild land.
I was young, and held the sun
in my right hand.
Long prairie grasses,
and the orange flowers
of flat, long-spiked cacti
bloom in the spring.
Rattle snakes
coil in piles,
like fresh cow patties,
on the hot, dirt roads.
Sundays, we worshiped
at the dam, casting our lines
into clear water.
Eating bass over an open fire.
The wind and sun, constant...
The big sky, wide enough
to swallow you whole,
down to the soul.
No reason for lies
or putting on airs out here.
You know who you are,
and your neighbors as well.
The only surprise is
in the growing of children.
How like or unlike
their parents they are.
And the seasons roll...
The cows go to market,
and the wheat is
harvested and stored.
School starts again.
And again...
the war with snow
and cold begins.
Spring comes in March
to the flute song of meadowlark,
and the wind that flies
the kites and dries the fields.
The cacti blooms again.
The grasshoppers return.
Big, green hoppers,
big, dusty-gray flyers.
Kittens are born and
swaddled in blankets
by little girls, until grown
they escaped in dresses.
This is the Dakota prairie.
The land of God's grace
To my pony and me
there was no better place.
Scheme | XABA CDEX XXXX XXFF XXGG HXFX CBXF GXCX IIXX XXHX IXDD AXXC EJEJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 011111 1011 1110101 0111 11010 001010 111110 1001 101 101 11110 10111 1110 10110101 01110 1011011010 010110 011101 11011 1101 11011 1101111 11111 011011 010011 0010110 11101 11011 00101 011110 0011 10001 1101 001 0111 0101 1101 1011110 00111 010101 010101 01001 1110 110110 10110 1010 1101011 101010 11001010 01111 11101 111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 1,146 |
Words | 221 |
Sentences | 24 |
Stanzas | 13 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 52 |
Letters per line (avg) | 18 |
Words per line (avg) | 4 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 71 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 17 |
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Submitted on February 13, 2013
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:06 min read
- 1 View
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"I Held The Sun in my Right Hand" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 Sep. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/74256/i-held-the-sun-in-my-right-hand>.
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